


Defying Gravity, Not Time

by sunshinesshadow



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Introspection, No Dialogue, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25973884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinesshadow/pseuds/sunshinesshadow
Summary: Volleyball is simple, predictable, and the fire that keeps him going.Life isn’t.Kageyama's time before Karasuno and the relationships he had along the way.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Kageyama Tobio & Kindaichi Yuutarou & Kunimi Akira, Kageyama Tobio & Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	Defying Gravity, Not Time

Tobio has always been great friends with loneliness.

The house he lives in is flooded with silence. His parents are busy working, present in his life only in the latest of nights and early mornings or the occasional event. It’s nothing to be resentful over, his parents work hard to provide for the family. So, he understands.

Yet, the house is too cold without anyone home.

Miwa, his sister, is six years older. She is friendly, finding fun in every corner outside the house. Miwa is the brightest presence in Tobio’s life, but too full of kinetic energy to stay by his side. Miwa is a firecracker dancing through the night sky and Tobio can only enjoy her presence at a distance.

Tobio makes friends with his neighbors, but they always move away after a year or two. Phone numbers are written down, but easily forgotten. At least that’s what Tobio tells himself. He continues to make friends and loses them to time. After awhile, it doesn’t hurt to be forgotten. The loneliness he feels with every single goodbye grows and becomes the shadow clinging to his footsteps.

Most days, Tobio isn’t actually alone. His grandfather keeps him company, but it’s difficult to find something to connect with when he is five times Tobio’s age. Eventually they find a common language-- volleyball.

It’s simple, predictable, and amazing.

Grandpa teaches, he listens, he practices, he improves. The goal is to keep the ball defying gravity, to stay in the game as long as possible. The result is the most exciting thrill Tobio has ever experienced in his life.

Somehow, volleyball is just more fun than soccer or baseball.

It lights a fire in Tobio that burns the loneliness away and so, Tobio clings to volleyball like a moth to a flame.

He watches competitions, studies jargon, and practices until his muscles ache.

Sometimes, the joy slips away but he continues on anyways because it is the only common ground he has with his grandfather and the only language Tobio is fluent enough in.

* * *

  
When Tobio first meets Oikawa-san, he finds the same fire in the older boy’s eyes. The stinging pain of every rejection is addictive and Tobio can’t bring himself to look away from the prowess that Oikawa-san wields. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish Oikawa-san could look at him kindly, like he does to everyone else; like Oikawa-san used to look at him before they started playing together.

Tobio doesn’t think too much on Oikawa-san’s words, too busy with arranging his grandfather’s birthday present. Miwa hopes it can help Grandpa smile a bit brighter, but she doesn’t see how Grandpa has been slipping away for weeks now.

Even so, Tobio finds himself repeating funny stories and copying the nurses to amuse his grandfather. Tobio finds the way Grandpa’s eyes light up resemble fireflies; fleeting and dying by the next morning. Tobio spends more time catching moments of momentary happiness in Grandpa’s face than he does catching fireflies, anyways.

* * *

  
By the time Tobio starts middle school, volleyball connects Tobio with his peers more concretely than anything else he can give.

Kindaichi and Kunimi are his first friends that last longer than a year. Their friendship starts awkwardly, finding the right rhythm to avoid clashing or overstepping boundaries. Kindaichi is always nervous to start conversations with the two quiet boys, but has a fun sense of humour. Kunimi has a deadly tongue in spite of his preference for silence, but is observant and considerate with the both of them. Tobio is just awkward and out of touch, a consequence of spending every single day with someone two generations older.

Eventually they learn more about each other, like the fact that Kindaichi used to have a stutter or that Kunimi has insomnia or that Tobio hates sudden noise. They grow around each other, as their positions in volleyball become defined.

Tobio and Kindaichi gush over their senpais together, to Kunimi’s continued boredom. Tobio helps Kindaichi improve to become a wing spiker to one day be equal with Iwaizumi-senpai. Kindaichi in return acts as Tobio’s social buffer and teaches him all the pop culture or common knowledge he’s missing.

Tobio and Kunimi enjoy quiet conversations but argue more often, to Kindaichi’s exasperation. Kunimi is annoyed at Tobio’s blunt honesty making his best friend vulnerable to bullies and doesn’t understand why Tobio’s sense of self-preservation is lacking. Tobio often feels hurt when he’s at the end of one of Kunimi’s barbed jokes and gets frustrated at decoding Kunimi’s veiled intentions.

These arguments often lead to a few days alone for Tobio, while he waits for Kindaichi to help Kunimi cool down. Then they are friends again, re-learning each other's boundaries and understanding each other better.

Tobio doesn’t admit that those lonely days hurt so much, that it makes him insecure in where he belongs in their friendship. Kindaichi and Kunimi get along so well without him, even better with each other than with _him _.__

He forgets those insecurities when Kunimi puts his arm around his shoulder after Oikawa refuses to teach him again. He forgets those insecurities when Kindaichi walks him home late in the afternoon after waiting for Tobio to finish practicing.

Tobio still doesn’t know what else to offer, but comforts Kindaichi after finals and buys Kunimi lunch in hopes it can be enough.

* * *

The house Tobio lives in becomes a little louder. His parents appear in Miyagi more often, with documents to track and calls to make.

Kunimi and Kindaichi visit often, the three of them talking until dawn. His best friends hold him in their arms when he starts to cry. He doesn’t have the words to explain his tears, but they don’t mind. The exhaustion that has been building for the past couple of months without release slips away and he revels in the comforting warmth.

Tobio may not like noise, but Kindaichi and Kunimi’s voices send him off to sleep. The house has never felt warmer.

* * *

His grandfather slipped away from Tobio’s life permanently. Grandpa was alive an hour ago, drinking tea from a mug in his weak hands. At this second, he is already gone. No goodbye, no last look, no warning for Tobio to know this is the last time he’ll see his grandfather alive.

Tobio knows his grandfather is  _ dying _ , but Tobio cannot seem to grasp that his grandfather has  _ died _ . His grandfather is  _ dead _ , gone and  _ left _ Tobio to live without him.

In a single phone call, Grandpa has gone from  _ dying _ to being  _ dead _ .

It is the first time Tobio understands the finality of death.

* * *

Tobio finds himself overwhelmed and spread out thin. It’s only been a week, but his grandfather’s death seemed to be the embers that lit a forest fire.

His parents are in Miyagi, with all of Tobio’s extended family, holding each other up from the weight of grief. Every single person that has ever known his grandfather is holding back tears so they can pray for his next life.

The breathlessness of shock is replaced with distractions. His mother cleans, his father prepares the funeral, and everyone else prays. Miwa holds his hand and makes sure he eats. When the distractions aren’t enough, they tell stories. Tobio learns more about his grandfather, the parts he never got to see and reconciles the stories of Grandpa’s youth with the man bound to the hospital.

Tobio continues going to school, no one knowing just how much Tobio’s world has changed. Kunimi and Kindaichi don’t say anything, but notice his quiet daydreaming. The team notices his leaving home on time.

Tobio cancels weekend plans to help sort out his grandfather’s things, millions of objects accumulated over a lifetime. It takes over a month to put into boxes and display the rest as little memorials. His grandfather’s home and bills are still being debated, but Tobio doesn’t care enough to keep track.

* * *

Tobio’s routine goes back to normal quickly, but the house is somehow even more quiet. Without his grandfather, the quiet grows to become overbearing. The loneliness weighs at his heart.

Tobio never responds to text anymore, finding it difficult to focus and lie that he’s fine. The only way his parents know he’s alive is Miwa’s updates. Kunimi and Kindaichi don’t get angry, instead trying to optimize the time they spend together at school. Every weekend, his best friends are by his side. Sometimes he enjoys the distractions and his friends are the only way for him to laugh. Other times, everything hurts too much and he only listens to the conversation. By the time he gets home, he feels suffocated at their presence but can’t say anything.

He finds the only clarity in his life in volleyball. It’s simple, predictable, and freeing. He knows where the ball will go and it is the only thing he has control in life. Every time he improves, it fills him with relief. He wants to make his grandfather proud.

No one ever stops him. No one warns him. No one reminds him that seeking validation from someone who’s gone is impossible. No one is there to actually give him validation.

So he pushes his limits, feels frustrations when reality doesn’t match the ideal.

Kindaichi does try, but cannot seem to match up. So, Kindaichi and Tobio argue more often. Kunimi grows more quiet.

Tobio doesn’t realize resentment burrowing in his best friends’ hearts. He does notice Kunimi avoiding blocks and Kindaichi jumps never going any higher. He notices conversations growing stilted, but he hasn’t been participating anyways. The weekend hangouts are no longer weekly, but once every other month.

Tobio doesn’t mind, it just means more time to focus on volleyball.

Tobio chooses to not notice Kunimi’s teasing becoming sharper or Kindaichi’s friendly shoves becoming more aggressive. Tobio’s hurting anyways, being hurt a little more doesn’t matter. He can’t bring himself to react. One day, he’ll wonder if a reaction was all they wanted in the first place.

* * *

The betrayal is a sudden blow. One second, they were all around him and the next, he is alone.

He is truly alone, in every sense of the world. Where the loneliness stops and Tobio begins is unclear, simply Tobio  _ is _ loneliness.

Tobio is lonely.

* * *

Oikawa-san comes by to tease him and somehow the words hurt more without Kunimi’s arm around him or Kindaichi waiting for him.

Tobio knows he’s failed. His vice-captain position now officially void, though maybe it had never mattered to his teammates in the first place. He can’t bring himself to care, the only position that mattered more was his place beside Kindaichi and Kunimi. 

Can he still call them his best friends, when they don’t consider him a friend anymore?

The thoughts continue to spiral in his mind. The loss of his friends only second to his own disappointment in himself.

He’s hurt his teammates, his bestfriends, and his grandfather’s legacy. He was too distracted by his own hurt to realize his own destruction.

Kindaichi and Kunimi have given him a wake up call, now it's time for him to rise up again.

* * *

So, Tobio studied for Shiratorizawa. 

He knows Aoba Johsai won’t welcome him willingly, despite his acceptance letter. He wants to make his grandfather proud, but it won’t be coming out of an accomplishment but out of who he is as a person. He will only be able to make his grandfather proud if he becomes a person he can be proud to be. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone like he has hurt Kindaichi and Kunimi.

Shiratorizawa is the chance for him to be a little closer to his grandfather, a chance to know about the place and children his grandfather cared about even in his retirement. He knows it’s impossible, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

* * *

The rejection letter does hurt. It reminds him of being alone on the court, but it hurts a little less. Maybe, because they don’t know him or maybe because he knows it’s not the place for him. Shiratorizawa is more expensive and academically-inclined than Karasuno. Shiratorizawa has a better team and better facilities than Karasuno. Shiratorizawa does give him better opportunities, but it might drown him to keep up.

Tobio just hopes Karasuno will be kinder to him than Kitagawa Daiichi had been.

* * *

Tobio walks to the gym with a volleyball in hand. He has had time to breathe and heal. The end of his middle-school experience has left open wounds in his heart, but aches a little less with every passing day.

He still wants to call Kindaichi and Kunimi, wishing they were by his side right now to play. He doesn’t quite have the courage to do so, yet.

Volleyball is simple, predictable, and the fire that keeps him going.

Life isn’t.

The loud red-headed boy calling for his attention isn’t anything like Kindaichi and Kunimi, or even Oikawa-san.

Hinata Shoyou is a little more like Miwa, with her quiet optimism and resilience. Hinata’s annoying, but he’s warm and inspiring. Hinata appreciates his honesty and can keep up with him. Hinata is always by his side, like the sun in the sky and Tobio finds himself pulled into Hinata’s gravity. 

Hinata helps Tobio say goodbye to his loneliness.

In return, Tobio challenges Hinata to continuously improve. Tobio gives Hinata’s drive practical instructions so the boy can realize his true potential, in hopes that he can help bring the boy’s dream of becoming the Little Giant into reality. 

Even more than rivals, they are friends. Together, they play and defy gravity.

Tobio thinks that Hinata might be a friend of a lifetime.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in so long, but I hope you enjoy reading this :)... I was projecting a lot of my feelings and writing through Kageyama's perspective helped me cope. I wrote this without editing, that's why there's no dialogue and the style is a mess, but I hope you could still enjoy it... Please leave any criticism or improvements, I'd like to hear from you. Anyways, thanks for reading this monster of a work. Hope you're all safe and okay :)


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